Cycle the 6th

Okay, so now were on 3/25, Wednesday. This is CD 24 for me. Now that everyone is gone, I can concentrate back on my cycle. My temps have been crazy with some spikes, but never consisitent. I thought I might have ovulated when everyone was here because my temps shot up, but then on Monday & Tuesday they went back down. When Dr. G called with Kevin's results(on CD14) he told me that if I hadn't had a good pattern on my bbt chart by CD25 that I should call him back and let him know. So even though Wednesday was only CD24, it's the 25th and I'm sure I understood him to say to call on the 25th. *wink* I called and they asked me to come in on Thursday.

Thursday I took a long lunch to go to my appt. Thankfully Dr. G's office was very flexible with me on the time of my appt. I got to meet the new nursing assistant(?) R. They did an u/s and found a 12cm follicle on the left ovary. Yay! This is the first time anything has been found on my left ovary. Dr. G couldn't find anything on my right, not even my ovary. He ended up having to do it through my abdomen and sheesh, that hurts! He eventually found it and nothing was there. So he talked to me about injectibles. He said I've already done 5-6 months of Clomid and the Femara (which was a high dose apparently) obviously did nothing for me, so he thinks that this is what I need next. He then looked at my charts (which I decided to bring at the last minute) and said that actually, I might have ovulated on CD11. This was a surprise because I had discounted those high temps because it was so early in my cycle. Counting back, that meant that I was on CD14, so he decided to do progesterone b/w. He asked R. if she wanted to do the blood draw but the way he asked her was like totally in a want-to-do-this-blood-draw-cause-you-don't-really-know-how? kind of tone which took me aback alittle. See I'm all for being a human guinea pig. I'm not particularily squeemish, I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and I realize that everyone has got to start somewhere. But when your doctor is watching and telling the person that is taking your blood that she is doing it all wrong and mentioning rolling veins, then I get a little concerned. He then grabbed another needle/vial and showed her how she should have done it using my left arm as a guide (R. did the blood draw out of my right arm). He didn't actually pierce my skin with the needle, but he got awfully close and while I was prepared to get stabbed once, I wasn't prepared to have it done twice in a row. Anyways, depending on the results of the b/w I was either to start provera (he gave me a Rx before I left) or wait for AF to arrive on her own.

Friday while I was in my lunch meeting R. called me. She left a message and said that she had the results of my b/w and could I call her back? She then said that the office was closing early so I would need to call back in the next 10 minutes. I got the message two hours after she left it at 2:00pm. I was so annoyed! Even if she can't tell me the results the least she could have done was tell me if I needed to fill the Rx or not. Now I would have to wait till Monday to even do anything! Arg.

In A Family Way

Let me take you back in time. To 13 days ago - St. Patrick's Day. A friend, S, from my ISG is opening a new store and I went to the store opening. It's such a cute shop! I'm excited for her and her husband. Also while talking to S, she mentioned that she would like to join my bible study class(BSC) the following week. I was all sorts of excited and when I went to the BSC I told the organizer about it. Then they announced that the class originally scheduled for 3/24 would actually be the day before. Oh no! This meant I would miss the class because the family would be around, but also meant that I would miss S' first class. I was so upset. I emailed them to let them know I would be missing. They also moved the class that was suppose to be on 3/31 to today, but this one I can go to so I'm looking forward to going back - although I haven't done any of the weekly readings. Oops!
Two days later, Thursday, Wiki and I are out running errands when the "incident" occurs. I'll tell you more about this later though. I've still not wrapped my mind around it. We picked up my parents from the airport. Later we went to agility at the new agility place. The new building is huge and since it's a new place, very distracting. Les tried Kevin's patience, but we got some great pictures out of it. Dave was great for me. Ah, the benefits of having an older dog. :)
Friday we had a family shopping day. Kevin tried to get out of it, but I reminded him how he forces me to go on his family outings even though I have tried repeatedly to get out of them. I told him to think of these shopping trips as my family's version of going on big walks. So he came with us and was agreeable the whole day! We spent most of our time in Ko.hl's. I love that place. He even bought himself two shirts, a jumper, shorts & a hat! All I got was one shirt and some towels for the downstairs loo. Sheesh! Bonus though, we found a bathroom kit that we both liked right away, which is rare, so we're gonna go back and get it.
Saturday we went to Colonial Williamsburg for the day. Kevin and I had been wanting to go for a while, but everytime we had visitors, they always wanted to do other things. We got summer passes though, so we're hoping to go again during the summer. It is really a neat place and I'm itching to visit Jamestown now.
Sunday we had family portaits done. Last year, Kevin and I got them done with Dave & Les, but that place has closed down. Blast that economy! Anyways, this year we went to a place around the corner. No pets allowed! :(
Monday I went to work but everyone else went on a tour of battlefields near RVA. Then after work, I had my soccer game. D, the team manager, never got back to me to say it wasn't okay that Wiki played, so I took her anyway. It was a good thing though! As of game time, we only had 7 players ready to play. And we play 7v7! Eventually 4 other players showed up, so we had subs. The new players all seem to be good. We ended up winning 9-0. I was able to score twice and got 3 assists. Wiki didn't score but said she had some assists. Afterwards we went out to dinner.
Tuesday I got up at 4am to drive Wiki to the airport followed by Kevin with my parents in the car. Their flights out were at 6am! I then came back home and crawled back into bed until it was time to go to work.
So all in all a good time, very tiring, but lots of fun. And now you're only 6 days in the past.

Return of the KMO!

Yes I'm back. It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post, and it's not cause I don't have anything to tell you all. Things have been crazy with the visiting family and then I spent the rest of that time just catching up - laundry, yardwork, sleep! Yikes! But I'm back and I've got a few things to share with. I won't launch into them all now, cause it's late and I don't want to bore you with a long rambling post, but I will share in the coming days.
In my absence, I've done a poor job of keeping up with you all as well. I'm sorry! Work has been crazy busy lately as we're getting ready to launch a new product so very little free time on the internets. I'm still catching up with most of you, but I should be back on track by the end of the week. I hope!
Have a good week!

Wiki has landed!

Wiki just texted me from the airport and her plane has landed. Kevin is picking her up since he works near where we live (within 3 miles!). It's a 1/2 hour to the airport for both of us from where we work, but it would take me another 35 minutes to get back to work after dropping Wiki off. I'm so excited. I even got myself up and out of bed in time to get to work at 7am just so that I could leave an hour early. She's had to fly all night so I'm sure she's way tired.

Tonight we're going to go climbing and we don't have much else planned yet. I guess we'll just have to wait and see when my parents get here tomorrow!

Results

Dr. G called yesterday with results from Kevin's SA. Apparently it wasn't really an SA, it was a 24 hour motility test. Everything is fine though and Kevin is not the reason why it's taking us so long. He was happy.

I've been adding pictures to some previous posts that you might want to check out:

3/2/09 - Sticky - Snow in RVA!

2/12/09 - I Can't Get My Fix! - my thermometer AD (after Dave)

12/30/08 - A pleasant surprise - the flowers that Auntie L sent us

I've got more, which I'm determined to get up soon. I might as well have something for you all during this "break" of mine.

So remember how I was saying that one of the reasons why I joined the women's indoor team again was so that Wiki and I could play together? Yeah, well it turns out that it might be a problem now. I'm so annoyed. A doesn't think it will be really, but D (the team manager) wants to make sure that everyone is okay with this and won't get upset because they're losing playing time that they have paid for. Pffft. So she put it out to the team to decide. I guess this is the considerate thing to do.

Ooooh! Congrats to Kirke at Maybe I will have a glass for having two great betas! I tell you, this KU thing is catching (hopefully!)

Random

This cycle has been one of the weirdest that I've had in a while. Ever since the start of this cycle, I've had these sharp pains in my right ovary (I think) throughout the days. Finally a couple of days ago it suddenly stopped. I took an OPK but it came out negative. And then the next morning my temperature was 97.8°. I normally only get temps that high when I've ovulated, but I knew that this temp had to be a blip. This morning's temp was higher than normal, but not high enough I think. So I think I'm good. I'm anxious to see if Femara works for me.
I had my infertility support group meeting today. I always look forward to these meetings because it's a great group of ladies. We all have different stories and circumstances but we have this common thread.
Kevin and I have recently started watching the Col.bert Rep.ort and the Dail.y Sho.w with J.on Ste.wart. They're actually quite amusing. I didn't think I would like them since they're pseudo-news but I can see why they're becoming more mainstream.
Only four days till Wiki gets here. Only five days till my parents get here. Also, this week is only a four day work week. Yay!

Baby Shower.

I just took my last Femara pill. I forgot to take it during dinner (I pop all three pills at once) so I had to have strawberries and cream so that I would have food in my stomach. :P
Kevin is doing his SA tomorrow. The RE isn't that worried about it cause he said the PCT was really good.
Chicken has set a date for her baby shower. It's Mother's Day - like actually on Sunday. When she called to tell me I was kind of caught off guard. First, I thought it was going to be in June and second cause I thought it was going to be on a Saturday. Since I was going to be traveling (cause I think I'm the only out-of-towner) Saturday was going to be easier.
Anyways, when she called, I was like "Ooh, I don't know, I'll have to check." But now I'm freaking out that she might think I'm not looking forward to it because of IF and not that I was concerned about the travel aspect. They're doing it on Sunday because Chicklet's dad's family will all be around for someone's graduation on Saturday so Mother's Day is the most convienent day for them to do it and get the greatest response. I looked online and found flights for $57 each way! Yes! So I got them and now we're good to go.
Back when we first talked about the baby shower, Chicken was tossing around April and June - I voted for June because at the time we were going away sometime in April and also because June gave me more time to get pregnant. Not that I wanted to steal Chicken's thunder, I just thought it would have been neat. Now that it's May - it's only one month earlier - but I feel so much more pressure to be pregnant by then. I'm not sure why, it's not like anyone at her shower would pressure me. All of our mutual friends are still single so they're not thinking about having kids and it's easy to deflect inquiries when it's coming from a total stranger. But still this means I have maybe two cycles left before the shower. Like somehow if I'm not pregnant by this shower or by the time Chicklet is born, I won't be able to be a great friend. Almost like I can forgive her for having an unexpected accidental baby, but only if I (who will have been trying earnestly for 9 months by then) get mine at the same time. How wrong is that? I know I shouldn't feel this way and I don't really, not now anyway. But I think I might if things work out that way. I really don't want to become that person.

A bit of this and that

I'm not really sure what to write. Nothing is really going on, so this is probably going to be very stream of consciousness. I'm CD7 today. I've been having these strange twinges/pains on what feels like my right ovary. I've been having them for the past few days. I'm not sure what's up but I've half convinced myself it is a cyst. I've not been feeling any side effects from the Femara or Metformin. But I didn't feel any side effects from the Clomid either so I'm not concerned about that.
So even though I've had my head in the sand for the past 6 months or so and didn't realize that 3 of my neighbors are pregnant, I've been seeing them all over now. I saw #43 with her husband and dog out walking twice since Monday. The other day Les got out from the back yard and #42 came over to let us know. And now I'm seeing #25 all the time when we're out in the back yards. Today when Kevin and I were eating dinner on the deck, she was out grilling up some sausages. It's all a bit surreal. On one hand it's cool that there are going to be three kids in the neighborhood all a similar age to mine (I hope!) but even if I get pregnant this month, these kids will all be a year ahead of mine.
Kevin and I have decided that we're not going to be actively TTC this cycle. I've got three reasons and yes, they're all a bit selfish. They're all based on the assumption that I'll ovulate around CD18. One: Our trip in September. Although I wouldn't mind being 6 1/2 months pregnant while on this trip, for some reason 5 1/2 months seems more manageable. Two: I've always been slightly annoyed that my birthday is so close to Christmas. I always felt jipped when presents would be combined birthday/holiday gifts or holiday related. Why would I do that to my kid? Three: Wiki and my parents will be here right around ovulation which would kind of freak me out. Also our wakeup/bedtime schedule is going to be all screwed up and I don't want to add stress to what is already a stressful time.
So while we're not actively TTC, we're not going to stop altogether. I wanted to take meds because I'm ovulating so far, I don't want to slip backwards to my non-ovulating days. And I'll continue to take the metformin. Who knows, maybe I'll be better prepared in April. But what will happen will happen.
Also a big congrats to Erin at Seriously!?!?! She just had her baby boy last week! He's so cute! I haven't been reading her blog for very long, in fact I just found it a couple of weeks ago. But I stayed up late to catch myself up and it's a very good read. Again, congratulations!

Don't call me. Wait! Do call me!

When we had the big appointment with the RE, he stated that if he didn't call me back for some reason that I should call him. Give him about two hours and if he nor the nurse nor Ms. J calls me then I'm to call them again. I took this policy very liberally this week.
Monday: During the snow storm of the century I call the office to let them know that I started spotting the day before. Dr. G had left a message stating that the office was open, he was the only one in though and so to leave a message. So I did. That was about noon. Dr. G called me at 9 pm (he did warn in his meeting that if he's going to call, he usually calls late). He wanted me to get b/w done the next day. I told him that Monday was only CD1, but he said it was CD2 if I started spotting on Sunday. I told him it started on Sunday night and it was very light, but he didn't seem convinced. So he asked me to fax him my charts (he makes me do them on his chart sheet, no FF) on Tuesday morning.
Tuesday: Fax the charts over around noon (cause I needed time to actually do them all) and then called to confirm that they got them. They called me back around 4 pm to say Dr. G wanted me to get the b/w done today. I called the lab and found out they closed at 5. There was no way I was going to be able to get out of work early to make it to the lab so I called Dr. G's office back and asked if there was somewhere else I could go because I wasn't going to make it to the lab before they closed. They said if I went first thing on Wednesday morning, that I could wait till then.
Wednesday: I got to the Lab about 7:25am (they open at 7am) and it was packed! Some people on the list had signed in before 7! Nice to know for next time. Waited 35 minutes to be seen, blood draw took about 5 minutes including signing all the forms and paying and then I was out of there and only 15 minutes late for work.
Thursday: Called Dr. G's office and asked if they'd gotten my results yet. Ms. J answered and said yes they had. She'd put my file on his desk and he would most likely call me that evening to let me know what was up. No call from Dr. G.
Friday: Didn't get a call all day so around 4:45 I finally called the office. Dr. G answered and it took him a while (4 minutes! I checked my phone timer) to find my file. Said that my b/w came back normal, I didn't think to ask him if it was normal for a regular lady or normal for someone with PCOS. I said okay and then asked him what the plan of attack was for this cycle. He asked me if I had started metformin yet and I said no, I never got the Rx for it. He said he'd call it in and then gave me the spiel about starting out slowly. He asked me if I had only been doing Clomid before and I said yes, but that it took 150mg to get me to ovulate. So he decided that I'm going to do Femara (2.5mg) this cycle. He didn't say anything about triggering or an u/s and I didn't think to ask. I was just happy to actually get a Rx at that point. He asked for my pharmacy # and said he'd call them in. I was working late so I called my pharmacy at 5:30 to find out if they had my Rx's yet. They hadn't gotten it yet. I called at 6 when I was leaving work, they still didn't have it but said they that they hadn't checked their messages since 5:30 and they usually get a bunch right after the dr.'s offices close, so to call back at 6:30. I called back at 6:25 and they had my Rx and said it would be ready at 7:00. I asked if when I needed to start the Femara (Dr. G didn't tell me) and they said Day 5 which was yesterday. Kevin went climbing last night so since he would have to pass the pharmacy on his way he picked them up. The weren't ready till 7:30 which was annoying, but he waited. So around 10 pm last night I took my first metformin and Femara.
Side note: The warning stickers on the side of the Femara bottle are pretty funny. One of them says: "Do Not Use This Medicine If You Are Pregnant Or Plan To Become Pregnant" and the other says "Keep Out Of Reach Of Children." WTF! I'm taking these pills to get pregnant and have kids! What kind of sick joke is this?

AF, Agility and Soccer

Do you find that even though AF shows up, you somehow justify her presence as something other than another failed cycle. Lately, I try to find any excuse/cramp/twinge as a sign that this is just random and that I really am KU. Intellectually I know that it's over, but emotionally it always takes me like a week to get it. And it doesn't help that the past few cycles AF has been kinda flighty and barely even here. What happened to my nice normal visits?
In other news, Dave has completed Level 4 and now she and Les are back in the same classes. She'll only be going to one Level 5 class a week though because my bible study group is starting their next session next week. Actually we were suppose to start this week, but the snow has postponed everything. Anyways, it's on Tuesdays so Dave is just gonna have to work twice as hard on Thursday's Level 5. Our other class of the week is going to be Wednesday's Level 3 class. I'm bringing Dave down a level to work on some of those missing fundamentals that she doesn't have yet. I'm hoping in the long run it will benefit her.
I use to play on a co-ed and womens 30+ indoor soccer teams last year. I started in March with the co-ed team for the spring session. A co-worker of mine, A, wanted to put together her own team so she asked me to play as well as two other co-workers and the husband of another co-worker. It was a lot of fun and we did well, going undefeated during the season and even winning the EOS tournament.
The team decided to move up a division for the next session in June and then A asked me to be on a womens 30+ team she played on. I said okay and so over the summer, I played on both teams. Towards the end of the season, I noticed a shift in the attitudes and friendliness of the other players on my co-ed team. Towards me. Now I'm not the best player. The last time I played competitively I was about 75 lbs. lighter and even then, I was never a starter. However I am a damn good cherry picker. Give me the ball in the upper quarter and I'll get it in the back of the net. Now the team was still good, undefeated in regular season (and went on to win the EOS tournament again). About a week before the regular season ended, A told me that the team was disbanding. Several players were joining other teams or just taking a break. I said okay, sad that the team was not going to be any longer, but thankful to at least have my women's team.
Then a little birdie told me that actually the team wasn't disbanding, they just didn't want me on the team anymore. See they were planning on moving up a division again and pretty much thought of me as dead weight. I was devasted. And not because of being dropped. I could accept the choice they made both as a player and as a coach, what upset me so much was that A lied to me. To my face, a stupid and really bad lie. I had thought A and I were becoming friends, even going to lunch a few times a month and hanging out after work. At that point I could understand having to do what she did as the captain/manager, but she shouldn't have lied to me. Honestly if they had told me that they were moving up a division, I probably would have bowed out at that point. I knew in my heart of hearts that I would have never been able to keep up.
However by the time I found out what really happened, I had already signed up (and paid) to play again on the womens 30+ team and so I couldn't back out of it. I considered changing teams within the league, but really I didn't want to have to explain to that team captain/manager that I no longer wanted to play with her star player. So I played the Fall session. The team dynamic had also changed. I had issues with how certain players (not A) played the game and how vocal they got towards me and other players. I didn't really like playing with them and I didn't really want to play with A anymore. Things were a bit tense but I lived through it and at the end of the season I claimed some excuse for not playing in the holiday or winter session and said that if I did come back that it wouldn't be until the 2009 summer session.
Back in January, A approached me one day at work (we never talk anymore, only when we have to for work) and asked if I was able to come back to the womens team yet. She lamented that the team couldn't score anymore. I was noncommital and just shrugged it off. Then about a month ago she asked me again. I was missing playing at this point and had been considering signing up. My plan at that point was to sign up as a single player and then be assigned to another team. So I told her that I might and that to let me know when sign-ups were closer and I would probably do it. I figured she would "forget" and I could just say that I wanted to play again and since I never heard back from her, I joined another team.
Well last week she told me that our 30+ league was turning into a 25+ league. Also they were splitting the league up into two divisions, competitive and recreational. The team we played for was doing the recreational side. She also mentioned that players couldn't play in both divisions so that we were losing a few players because of that. The players mentioned were some of the players that I didn't like playing with. I started to reconsider. Yesterday she sent me an email asking if I was able to play on the team or not. The season starts in two weeks so they needed to build the roster. I went to talk to her and asked her if it was possible to put Wiki on the team so that she could play in the game while she was here and A said it would not be a problem. So I went ahead and signed up. Afterwards she said something about if the team does well, then they'll move up for the summer session, so I can use that as an excuse to move teams (if need be) claiming that I want to stay in rec. She also mentioned that one of our former co-ed teammates was also going to be on the team. I'm not looking foward to that, but hey at least I'll be playing again, and I've got a better exit strategy.

Sticky

Yesterday while we were at
mass, it started snowing. Nothing different than other times it has snowed in RVA, but kinda weird cause it's March. While Kevin and I were sitting at IHOP, I commented that it was too bad that the snow wasn't sticky. At that point the ground and streets were still clear and unsnowed. We went back to the house, did house things and then around 4:00 got ready to do our weekly grocery shopping. We took one step outside and ended up in a winter wonderland! There was snow everywhere! My car was covered and everything was white! It was crazy! I wanted to move my car into the garage, so Kevin went to the shops by himself while I brushed off the snow off my car, moved it into the garage and pulled out all our snow gear. While I was out I saw #36's dad and kid and #54's kid out trying to sled in the snow. Now our street does rise, but its pretty gentle so if you don't have some kind of momentum already, you're not going to go pretty far or fast. We, however, live at the top of a hill from the street. So I told them if they wanted to that they could use our drive way. They did for a few hours and then went home. We even had some fun and Kevin and I went out about 10 pm and did some sledding ourselves.

Well, this morning all the neighborhood kids made the trek with their sleds, disks and snowboards to the top of our driveway and completely compacted the snow! Then the parents built an embankment on the street so that the kids could turn onto the street and keep going! Some of the kids
were making it to two or three houses down the block from our driveway. We had kids and parents coming from other neighborhoods to slide down our driveway. In the evening, #36 brought out their fire pit and #30 brought s'mores suplies and we all camped out. It was a lot of fun. However in the course of the evening, I found out 3 of my neighbors are pregnant and due in the next couple of months. My next door neighbors(#25), my next door next door neighbors(#43) on the other side and the neighbors(#42) across the street from them. Even Kevin was a little shaken by the news. I seriously had no idea!

And speaking of unexpected, AF showed up last night as well. I kinda knew it was coming but I was hoping that it at least hold off till tomorrow. This means that I only had an 11dpo which is on the short side and could mean an LPD. I called Dr. G and he called me back around 9:30 pm. I'm to fax him my temps tomorrow morning and then he's going to decide when I need to get b/w done.

One good point, I guess, is that Kevin and I are definitely off to Egypt in September. We booked the cruise and flights today so there's no backing out now. We were holding off till we knew how this cycle went, because I didn't want to be 7 1/2 months along and trying to get around Egypt. So we decided not to book it until we knew this cycle was a bust. Truth be told, I'd have given up Egypt in a second.

Oh, FYI: Chicklet is a girl! Yay!